Peter Toth > Peter's Quotes

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Elend: I kind of lost track of time…
Breeze: For two hours?
Elend: There were books involved.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“You get to choose who you are. Legacy, memories of the past, can serve us well. But we cannot let them define us. When heritage becomes a box instead of an inspiration, it has gone too far.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Skyward

“People need stories, child. They bring us hope, and that hope is real. If that's the case, what does it matter whether people in them actually lived?”
― Brandon Sanderson, Skyward

“When you’re young, you can assume that everyone older than you has life figured out. Once you get command yourself, you realize we’re all just the same kids wearing older bodies.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Starsight

“That's what war is," Cobb told me. "A bunch of sorry, desperate fools on both sides, just trying to stay alive. That's the part that those stories you love leave out, isn't it? It's always more convenient when you can fight a dragon. Something you don't have to worry you'll start caring about.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Starsight

“Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“When the reasoning mind is forced to confront the impossible again and again, it has no choice but to adapt.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“The way of the world isn’t the strong devouring the weak, but the weak deceiving and poisoning and whispering in the ears of the strong until they become weak, too.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“No, I'm telling this wrong. After all a person is herself and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. I am me and you.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both - taken and taken and taken, until there's nothing left but hope, and you've given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, or avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“(It is surprising how refreshing this feels. Being judged by what you do, and not what you are).”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“But there are none so frightened, or so strange in their fear, as conquerors. They conjure phantoms endlessly, terrified that their victims will someday do back what was done to them—even if, in truth, their victims couldn’t care less about such pettiness and have moved on. Conquerors live in dread of the day when they are shown to be, not superior, but simply lucky.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“But for a society buit on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“Well, some worlds are built on a fault line of pain, held up by nightmares. Don’t lament when those worlds fall. Rage that they were built doomed in the first place.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“How can we prepare for the future if we won’t acknowledge the past?”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“Conquerors live in dread of the day when they are shown to be, not superior, but simply lucky.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“Listen, son… when I was your age, I had to face truths that seemed to break the world. That’s what happens when you come into contact with people who aren’t quite like you. You learn over time that the world isn’t broken. It’s just… got more pieces to it than you thought. They all fit together, just maybe not the way you pictured when you were young.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“Wholeness, she had learned, was not the absence of pain but the ability to hold it.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“But if I learned one thing from Firebird, it’s that a person’s tragedy doesn’t define them or cancel all the good in their life.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“A life of dangerous adventures might seem worth it now, when you are young and seemingly invincible, but one day, you will have children, and you will not want that life for them.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning